A new round of brutal competition in 2019 kicks off
2019, the ebb of Internet finance, a decade of prosperity, a dream.
Everything is ebb, and many banks are relieved: Without them, they will “make trouble”, hold licenses and low-cost funds, and have a few more years to live by. But please note that the wisdom of life reminds us, “If you worry, you don’t have to worry; if you don’t, you have to bear.”
When the situation is good, the danger is approaching. The years have never been good. Mutual withdrawal is just the beginning of the next stage of brutal competition. More uncertainty is coming.
User awakening
The impactor leaves, the impact is still fermenting. The first is user awakening.
In the traditional financial business supply and demand relationship, banks have always been strongly dominated, users are evaluated, selected, and their voices are limited. For example, in the loan business, the user applies and the bank approves; in the wealth management business, the user is evaluated and the bank sets the purchase threshold; in the payment business, there is also a limit.
Financial business is different from general product trading. It takes money as the transaction object and deals with risks. It has extremely high professional requirements. General product transactions are mostly user-led; in the financial industry, the professional gap between banks and users is enough to reverse the dominance of both parties, and banks occupy a dominant position.
But the bank’s dominant position is not only reflected in professional fields such as risk assessment, but also has led to its dullness to the market and its arrogance to users. Prior to the emergence of mutual funds, users had limited options, and even voting with their feet was nothing more than “drawing generals from the dwarf”.
But long-term word of mouth complaints and negative emotions always have to find an outlet. Mutual Admissions provided this exit, made it possible, and “activated” users. The balance began to tilt to the user’s side. When the user slowly stood up, the bank could only lean down.
(1) Freedom of choice
Ten years ago, users complained about the bad experience of large banks while obediently becoming users of large banks. The reason is very simple-in the era of “outlets”, outlets are the truth, outlets of big banks are everywhere, what can be a bad experience? After all, all financial services are performed in outlets, and users can only choose services at a few outlets within three kilometers of the surrounding area, without real choice.
After the rise of Internet finance, through the financial APP, users have the ability to establish connections with hundreds of financial institutions, break free of the constraints of offline physical space and gain freedom of choice.
With the freedom of choice, you can vote with your feet, which is the first step in the awakening of user rights.
(2) Competitive empowerment
Users’ freedom of choice intensifies banking competition, and competition further empowers users.
For a time, the competition between banks was very “sheep”. Outlets, as the only place where gunfire can be heard, although KPI pressure is high, competition is not fierce. Within three kilometers of each other, several outlets compete with each other, users go around, but also choose between several. In such a closed small circle, the outlets will unconsciously form a hidden alliance, and no one will do the silly thing of “injuring the enemy a thousand and self-damaging eight hundred.” Everyone has a good life.
It’s different now. Users are facing an open environment. Once they leave, they really won’t come back. At this point, the bank could only lean over, trying to bleed, and had to laugh. Competition is getting fuller and more wolfish.
As described by classical economic theory, full competition has brought merchant profits to zero. Although competition has generally improved the level of bank services, users have become more and more discerning and their profitability has become worse.
At this time, it is not feasible for the Buddhist department to make money. Empowering the “scenario” and “technology” to open up the second pulse of the supervisor, activate their potential, the bank embarked on the road of transformation.
Scene admission
The bank runs after the user, and the user runs after the scene, so the bank accelerates to make the scene, and the scene party also enters the scene by the user’s potential.
The competition starts along two lines: scene giants, which follow the “+ finance” road, and it is relatively easy to add finance to industry; banks, which follow the “+ scene” road, finance and industry, Step by step.
The bank’s “+ scene” didn’t go through, so it chose the road of opening up; the scene giant “+ finance” gave birth to a fintech giant and also embarked on the road of opening up.
In the open and cross-cooperation with each other, the trend of financial and scene integration has become increasingly irreversible.
At this time, something unexpected happened. The gods fought, and came to an end with reconciliation, but they forced the general mutual financial institution to death. Mutual fund institutions that lack the support of the scene and do not hold hard financial licenses have begun to lose touch with the trend, their living space has become increasingly narrow, and they have embarked on the road of alienation and adventure.
There are P2P, small loan companies, payment agencies, big data service companies, collection agencies, even small rural commercial banks, city commercial banks, and a large number of non-licensed entrepreneurial institutions. They just want to live, they don’t want to leave the field, let go of Inclusive Finance’s dreams and glory, and plunge into the air of cash loans.
With their participation, cash loans are booming, and usury and violent collections have begun to emerge endlessly, which has become a disease in the industry.
Behind the flowers, fate has already secretly marked the price. These institutions are not very good: some funds were broken by the Ponzi scheme, some died in the down cycle, some were cut off by strong supervision, and some wereForced transformation, see no way forward.
Mutual financial institutions, once they have forgotten the intent of Inclusive Finance, can only pay the price of exiting the market. Perhaps it was once a scene of endless beauty, and it eventually became a dark episode in the fintech tide.
On the other side, the integration of finance and scene is accelerating.
The fusion of finance and scene is behind the fusion of financial data and scene data. Data remixing produces chemical reactions and activates financial technology. Fintech has further accelerated the deepening of the financial industry.
The rise of science and technology
Technology has always been the core driving force of the modern economy. It is no exaggeration to say that no matter what industry or occupation, only the integration and reconciliation with technology can have the right to survive.
In 1988, French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss asked himself in “Near and Far”: “Do you think there is still a place for philosophy in the world today?” He then answered “Of course, but only when philosophy is based on today’s scientific knowledge and achievements.”
Philosophy is the mother of science (Einstein). You still need to live in science to gain a foothold, not to mention the financial industry? So, what are we talking about when we talk about “technology is the number one driver of finance?”
We are not emphasizing that science and technology are very important. Science and technology have always been important to finance. They have not changed for decades and need not be emphasized. We are actually reminding that technology-driven financial innovation has entered a quantitative change The transition stage of qualitative change has entered a very critical period.
Schumpeter once said a famous saying:
“No matter how you reorganize the carriage, you will never get a railroad for it.”
This sentence is actually talking about two stages of innovation: the reorganization of the postal carriage is an optimization and improvement of the existing model. It may be understood as “quantity change”, which belongs to the same level of competition with each other; railway and train are subversive Innovation can be understood as “qualitative change”. Compared with horse-drawn carriages, it can reduce dimensionality.
A carriage can run as fast as a train. After the train appears, it is only a matter of time before the carriage exits the stage. At this time, repairing the road is no longer important, and repairing the railway is important for long-term competitiveness. The current fintech innovation is not limited to the leap from “postal carriages” to “railroad trains”.
What’s the reason? Fintech ten years ago was at the equipment and system level. Fintech for the last ten years has benefited from the data accumulation of financial scenarios and breakthrough advances in artificial intelligence, and has achieved a comprehensive breakthrough in automation and intelligence. Just as textile machines replace women’s textile workers, the new financial model under the financial AI empowerment gradually has a crushing advantage compared with the traditional model.
This is a profound change for the financial industry. In just a few years, the shotgun changed and the track changed. The business process and mechanism culture under the traditional model have changed from empirical advantages to transformational burdens. Traditional financial services and products are in harmony with traditional process models.In the mode, it looks out of place.
“When times abandon you, you won’t even say hello.” An era has passed, and an era is accelerating. Financial institutions are faced with the changes of this era, and those who cannot get the tickets for the new era have no way out, and can only be obliterated in the long river of industry cycle changes.
Finding answers in history
To cope with the changing times, the experience of the past five or ten years is useless. We need to find the wisdom of coping in the long history.
In 1894, the Sino-Japanese naval battle broke out in the period of the Sino-Japanese War in 1894, which was historically known as the “Sino-Japanese War”. The Qing defeated the North in this “Battle of National Games”, and since then it has fallen into disappointment, and Japan has risen to the ranks of a powerful country.
In the country, the failure of the Sino-Japanese War of the Sino-Japanese War marked the bankruptcy of the Westernization Movement-simply copying the “boat gunfire” of the Western material level, it could not save China. Just as Mr. Liang Shuming ’s criticism:
“They think that these things in the Western world are like a melon. We can only move them by cutting off the vines! With such a slight change, not only these things cannot be moved, but also the steps of China’s old culture are all messed up. Up. ”
Afterwards, China ’s national salvation plan shifted from “Western weaponry training” to reformation. Abolition of imperial examinations and revitalization of schools led reformists to dominate the Reform Movement of 1898. After the reformation was strangled by the Empress Dowager Cixi, the old school returned to the light and the Yihetuan emerged. “Fu Qing destroys the ocean” came to an end with a pebble and an eight-nation coalition invasion. The Qing paid the price of 450 million two silvers (historically called Gengzi compensation).
Afterwards, the society’s attention turned to the reform of the political system, there was a dispute between constitutionalism and revolution, and finally the “Xinhai Revolution” was born.
Afterwards, President Yuan Shikai restored the imperial system, and everyone realized that the political system was not completely changed, and they began to focus on cultural change. With the “New Culture Movement”, they wanted to awaken the majority of the people and became “Mr. De “” And “Mr. Sai” landing to improve the soil environment.
As Mr. Chen Duxiu, the leader of the New Culture Movement at the time, said in his article “The Last Realization of Myself”:
“The so-called republics and constitutionalists today are the claims of a few political parties, and most people do n’t see how they feel at stake and make choices. To cover the consciousness of the majority, the minority can be a leader, not a substitute ; The great cause of republican constitution, a few people can claim it, but it cannot be achieved. “
After that, the reason why the Chinese Revolution was victorious really came from awakening the majority of the people.
If you look back at this history, it’s not hard to find that in the past, the twists and turns of the past have been difficult because of the initial failure to recognize where the real challenge lies. Transformation under impact is not easy, and finding real challenges is especially difficult.
Turn your attention back to the current financial industry. Faced with the impact of fintech, financial institutions can see that it is not the “boat gun” of fintech. I saw the scene, data, and technology, so I also built the scene, also expanded the data, recruited scientific and technological talents, and established fintech subsidiaries.Company, to carry out system transformation and promote IT agile transformation.
But is that enough? Obviously not enough.
The real challenge for financial institutions is not technology itself, but whether it can create a soil environment in which financial technology can grow. Otherwise, blindly focusing on technology, it ’s just “cutting the vines and picking a few melons back.” This is by no means a real fintech transformation. I ’m afraid that at some point in the future, we will still lose the “Jiawu War” “.
Energy comes from conflict
Facing an uncertain future, you can only embrace it.
The stage is lively, but the dance music is constantly changing. Therefore, there is always conflict and confusion, but after all, people will dance with the new song. After all, it is not important how to jump.
In The Lessons of History, Will Durant concludes:
“Elderly people are right to resist young people and stimulate young people. Through such confrontation, just like gender conflicts and class struggles, can we produce creative energy full of tension and bring energetic Development can produce the basic unification and movement that are hidden overall. “
You see, there is nothing wrong with conservativeness and innovation; vitality comes from conflict.
2019 is worth remembering. The Internet ebbs this year, and a new era begins in this year. Institutions move in and out, life and death flow, industry changes, and never stop.
The challenge is always there.
This article was originally created by Suning Wealth Information. The author is Xue Hongyan, Assistant Dean of Suning Institute of Finance